Friday, July 28, 2017

Trip up North (Day 1)

Thank you to each of you who prayed for the safety and success of our recent trip to the northern Nigeria city of Kano!

There are 8GB of photos and four days of memories, so I'll try to condense it all into one (or more) blog posts!

Firstly, there were 22 of us that went in three different vehicles. Somehow my car ended up with us five single girls and the SIM driver that I've ridden with several times before.

We called our van the "Zumuntan Mata" or Women's Fellowship

I'm getting used to rough roads in Nigeria, but the rainy season only makes the potholes even worse!

Half-built petrol stations are a common site on any major Nigerian road

Fruit stalls like this are common in any village. Right now you can find oranges, watermelons, and bananas almost everywhere

Many villages will only have one or two wells. Here, a pump is draws water up from the bore hole (when there's power), stores in into black 40,000L tank, and people can fill up jerry cans from the spigots.

Indomie is the Nigerian version of Ramen noodles.

You can find ladies selling roasted maize for 50N along any road. It makes for an easy snack on the go.

These piles of sticks are the leftover from the crop of guinea corn. These stacks will be sold as firewood.

Rice being dried out in the sun.

We knew we'd arrived to Kano when we saw road overpasses, lane striping, and traffic lights. (I've heard that Jos has 4 traffic signals, none of which work, but I haven't ever seen one.)

The kekes in Kano are entirely yellow, while the ones in Jos are painted green and yellow. There were kekes EVERYWHERE in Kano!

Organized traffic! Wow!

This is where some of us stayed. It was built in the 1920s and was originally French-owned. Our rooms were clean and we had mostly consistent power, but our A/C and shower were weak at best. But for a Nigerian hotel it was pretty good. And at $50USD/night the price was good too!

We arrived to Kano about 6pm, said hello to a few other SIM missionaries that live there, dropped people off at their guesthouse or the hotel, and then headed off for dinner at a FABULOUS Indian restaurant!

When the restaurant has a huge poster with a creepy Bollywood actor you have to take a selfie!

While we were waiting for our food--we were starving!--we went downstairs to the grocery store. I had a bit of a shock when I saw Dove brand shampoo, Pam cooking spray, Snapple, and legit Oreos!

And then there were these products that I was not expecting!

When our food came though, it was delicious! Our SIM director who used to live in Kano with his family, ordered a ton of dishes for us to all share.

With full bellies and tired bodies, we headed back to our hotel/guesthouses and crashed!